The yellow caution tape can mean only one thing.
Once again, I feel a smile pulling at my lips, hoping my suspicions are correct.
Blondie watches with rapt attention and unabashed horror as the police start questioning the bar patrons and anyone else who has been on the street over the last hour or two.
The rumblings begin as a witness tells the police that he was the one who called. He found the body.
I listen as the police gather witness statements, everyone saying they'd all been in the bar and accounting for each other.
"Another mugging," a mustached officer tells a boy who barely looks old enough to be in uniform. "His wallet is gone, any jewelry he might have had on him, too."
A mugging? My eyes find the blonde in the crowd again, and as they do, she glances my way, our gazes clashing, sending waves of awareness and desire through me. She's even more beautiful in the flashing lights than in the bar, and I want to get closer again.
An inconspicuous white van arrives, the men inside piling out to pick up the body and take it away.
"Do we have an I.D.?" one of the police asks another as they watch the corpse be piled into the back of the van.
With a heavy sigh, the mustached man answers, "He's a regular at the station. Stanley. He was being investigated for the rape of that girl last month. All signs were pointing to him being guilty, and now that he's... well, a corpse, we can let his victim know her attacker won't be a problem anymore. Can't say I'm sad to see this one taken down."
A thrilled shudder threatens to wrack my body and I have to fight it down, my focus honing in on my new fixation.
As if sensing my attention, she looks at me again.
With a wink and a wicked smirk, I make my message clear, miming zipping my lips and throwing away the key.
I see you, my beautiful little doe-eyed killer.
For what feels like hours, the police question us.
Did you see anything?
Did you hear anything?
Was anyone acting suspicious?
When did you get to the bar? Did you see this man tonight?
No, no, no, hours ago, and no.
I saw nothing, heard nothing.
I was in the bar all night, as soon as I gotoff work.
Answering questions and hearing others answer the same ones, all of us confirming that we all saw each other in the bar for most of the night.
Even though they're sure it's a mugging, they have to do their due diligence before any of us can be permitted to leave.
And all the while, I keep feeling his eyes on me.
The dark-eyed stranger.
I tried not to notice him when I walked in, assuming a man that handsome was there with someone, but once he tried to frighten off my useful idiot, I could feel where he was the rest of the night. I could tell each time he looked at me, my eyes returning to him whether I wanted to or not.
There wassomethingabout him, something I couldn't quite put my finger on.
He wasn't particularly tall, nor incredibly muscular. He wasn't dressed ostentatiously or drab. His hair was black and wavy, but not so wild as to draw attention, or so tamed that it seemed overdone. He had one errant curl that hung over his forehead, and it looked so soft that I wanted to twirl it around my finger from the moment I saw him, but no one else seemed to even see him. Everything about him had screamed that he wanted to be invisible and go unnoticed, yet I couldn't avert my gaze for long.
He moved like water, smooth and graceful, flowing across the ground like every pothole and broken concrete edge weren't there at all.
